Oil discovery in Australia’s outback could ‘transform world’s oil industry’

[tuvor]

Source: Calgary Herald

SYDNEY - Up to 233 billion barrels of oil has been discovered in the Australian outback which could be worth trillions of dollars, in a discovery that could turn the region into a new Saudi Arabia.

The discovery in central Australia was reported to the stock exchange by Linc Energy, an energy company and was based on two consultants’ reports, though it is not yet known how commercially viable it will be to access the oil.

The reports estimated that the company’s 16 million acres of land in the Arckaringa Basin in South Australia contain between 133 billion and 233 billion barrels of shale oil trapped in rocks. It is likely that only 3.5 billion barrels, worth almost $359 billion at today’s oil price, could be recovered.

The find was likened to the Bakken and Eagle Ford shale oil projects in the US, which have resulted in massive outflows and led to predictions that the US could overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer as soon as this year. Peter Bond, Linc Energy’s chief executive, said the find could transform the world’s oil industry, but noted that it would cost about pounds 200million to enable production in the area.

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/life/discovery+Australia+outback+could+transform+world+industry/7867469/story.html

[Politicalboi]

1. Just leave it alone

Go GREEN Australia. The last thing we all need is access to more oil. We need to find other ways that are clean.

[jpak]

2. Burn it and it will be 50 degrees C in the shade - if there are any trees left.

yup

[tabasco]

3. So this company owns 16 million acres of Australia

That just seems fucked up.

[customerserviceguy]

9. Not really, when you put it into other terms

16 million acres is 25000 square miles, or a square about 160 miles by 160 miles. Being as the bulk of the continent is about 2000 miles by 2000 miles, much of it interior desert, it's not really a major proportion of the place. Austrailia is nearly 3 million square miles in area, this amount of this holding represents less than one percent of it.

Australia and the continental US are about the same size in square miles, this holding is about the size of West Virginia. Or, a bit bigger than a quarter of Wyoming, if you really want something more comparable.

[Ash_F]

11. You had me until "about the the size of West Virginia"

[customerserviceguy]

57. Did I find inaccurate figures?

Do you have different ones?

[tabasco]

19. No, really.

Do you think you're the only person in the world that knows the size of Australia and the size of a fucking acre. LOL.

[snooper2]

33. 1 of 7 actually...

[jberryhill]

34. Nope, 1 of 6

That guy Jim died last year. Pretty amazing that three of us are apparently in this thread though, ay mate?

[snooper2]

41. my daughter has been added to the list but it isn't public info yet..

[jberryhill]

43. Our future is assured

We are better off than the two remaining people who know the capital of New Hampshire.

[tclambert]

49. Wikipedia says NH's capital is Concord. Weird, since Concord is in Massachusetts.

Is it legal to have your state capital in another state? I'd like to nominate Honolulu for my state's capital.

[Xipe Totec]

55. And Boston is in England. Go figure. nt

[Xipe Totec]

56. More than twice the size of Anna Creek Station - The Largest ranch in the world

And twenty times the size of King Ranch.

[dipsydoodle]

14. Regardless of that

ownership doesn't give them the mineral rights which belong to the Australian government. It just prevents others from extracting the resourses.

[CANDO]

16. Probably owns the mineral rights.

eom

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

35. The Railroads owned roughly 12% of the United States at the turn of last century

The Hudson Bay Company owned three million square miles of the British Empire.

[jberryhill]

42. Most likely just mineral claims

But I am surprised at the lack of skepticism here of a "report to the stock market... based on two consultants' reports".

I was born on a Weenesday, but not last Wednesday.

[Yo_Mama]

61. Laughing

The company itself seems much less enthused than the press reports. ...

[Arctic Dave]

4. 3.5 billion from 133-233 billion barrels?

That is a lot of garbage.

Not sure calling it "oil" is even correct.

[dipsydoodle]

12. I'd like to know

exactly where they're thinking of getting all the water from for the extraction.

[Historic NY]

40. In other words not enough to supply the US for one year.

The US used 6.87 billion barrels (18.83 million barrels per day) in 2011 of refined product.

[customerserviceguy]

5. Seems like the folks who have been spouting the "peak oil" meme

are going to be disappointed. But, I knew they would be, the scarcer something gets the higher the price goes, and that just makes the stuff that's harder to get more economical to extract.

[Berlum]

13. Disappointed that clueless greedheads will further rape the Earth to enrich the 1% Republicons

(Republicons Global Style)...and further massively despoil and destabilize the planet. Yup.

[tclambert]

51. Earth? Saturn's moon Titan has oceans of hydrocarbons!

Super tanker spaceships coming soon to supply the SUVs of Earth.

[customerserviceguy]

59. There are things that need to be done

One does not have to fantasize about the supposed end of a resource to be in favor of them. There are many, many more reasons to move away from a hydrocarbon-based economy than "we're running out of it".

[Jackpine Radical]

65. Yeah, but "We're running out of it" is the one that sells the best.

Blockheaded GW deniers & the like want their SUVs, and be damned to anyone who wants to take away their toys.

[4dsc]

25. Don't worry, peak oil is here.

This won't put a dent into the world decline rate for oil production in the coming decades.

[customerserviceguy]

58. It will have an impact

on the speculators. They bid things up on the illusion of scarcity. Their lessened ability to do this means we will have more of a true market price for oil, rather than a bubble price, like we did a few years ago.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

36. Holding up peak oil as fact today is like holding up Vesconte's world map.

Within the confines of what was known at the time, it makes sense. But we have learned a little in the intervening years,

[bhikkhu]

44. "economical" for who?

If there is no limit to the costs and efforts you can afford to spend, then "peak oil" can be pushed out quite a ways...but at some point, even if money is no object, the net energy you get for your efforts approaches zero.

[jpak]

45. Peak Oil is empirical - all new data change the date of the peak

but there is a peak

yup

[limpyhobbler]

6. so are we are now officially doomed ?

[KoKo]

7. Shale Oil...Low Quality, Big Bucks to Process and Pollution from it coming to Austrailia?

This is hardly light sweet crude oil or even stuff from our Gulf.

It requires lots of "Processing" and could be more enviro damage than the deep oil wells that are now causing havoc.

Sigh.

[Javaman]

63. Heavy in sulfur too. nt

[Fuddnik]

8. When do we invade?

Loose the drones!!!!!

[RC]

10. Shale oil? How does that compare to the road tar being mined in Canada?

[pediatricmedic]

17. Slightly less evil

[ellisonz]

15. Leave it be!

[bucolic_frolic]

18. Well ..........

Crocodile Dundee always did say he had a reserve mine in the outback.

[KamaAina]

20. Here's what life is like in the nearest town

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy#Overview

The harsh summer desert temperatures mean that many residents prefer to live in caves bored into the hillsides ("dugouts&quot ....

The first tree ever seen in the town was welded together from scrap iron. It still sits on a hilltop overlooking the town.

The local golf course – mostly played at night with glowing balls, to avoid daytime temperatures – is completely free of grass, and golfers take a small piece of "turf" around to use for teeing off....

An unlikely oil boomtown indeed.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

39. Sounds better than Fort McMurray

[lunatica]

52. If there's a god it's testing us

What are ya gonna do humans?

Or it there's a devil is it getting ready to reap some of it's biggest catch yet?

[cvoogt]

21. Flying spaghetti monster help us.

Or jah. Whichever.

[Journeyman]

22. Crap. 50 years from now, we'll be fighting in the Outback, and they got nasty bugs & snakes & such…

[jberryhill]

37. Just about everything native to Australia will kill you

Unless it has fur.

[Scootaloo]

53. Then it just tortures you for a month

And morphine doesn't help

[Joe Shlabotnik]

23. Well, I guess we can shutter the Tar Sands.

No need for pipelines either. China and India will now have a new crack dealer.

[SCVDem]

24. We need oil for many reasons

Transportation and electricity shouldn't be among them!

[earthside]

26. Shale oil?

'Tight' oil.

That means fracking and all kinds of fancy, high tech, expensive means of extraction are necessary.

And that means it is probably not even commercially viable unless the price of petroleum stays around a $100+ per barrel.

Nothing to get excited about here.

[ninehippies]

27. There goes

the neighborhood. Dang. Another 'must see' place ruined before I get there.

[albear]

28. When do we invade to bring democracy and take away their WMD's?

Kidding everyone!

[FailureToCommunicate]

29. "So tell us again why YOUR oil is under

OUR land?"

[They_Live]

30. I drink

your milkshake.

[Grins]

31. Does this me no Keystone pipeline here...?

Then Aussies can now supply China, a market Canada was originally looking for. So...?

[AsahinaKimi]

32. They found Oil down under? Fairdinkum?

So we gonna invade there next? ...just kidding. (I hope).

[jberryhill]

38. May I have your attention, please

To these words:

"reported to the stock exchange by Linc Energy, an energy company and was based on two consultants’ reports"

There is another thing in Australia which has never been in short supply and if "reported to the stock market... based on two consultants' reports" doesn't set off your meter, then may I suggest you hold off on your other business plans there.

[daleo]

46. Australia has been hitting temperatures near 50 degrees celcius

It would be like a person committing suicide for a billion dollars. What's the point if you're dead?

[aquart]

47. Wouldn't they do better going wholly solar?

[Fumesucker]

54. Australia has been having grid problems because solar is being added too quickly for it to keep up

[defacto7]

48. WE DON'T NEED IT!

(I think that's the first time I've used all caps in a sentence.) Tax it to hell and back. The price should be too high to be convenient. Keep your damn oil Australia.

[lunatica]

50. If ambient heat generates energy that can be captured and used they already have a goldmine

in central Australia. But of course, maybe the world needs to get warmer.

[CanonRay]

60. This is crap oil, the bottom of the barrell

Notice that less than 5% is even recoverable? How much energy, and clean water (in the desert outback) will be required to get this oil out? Transform the oil industry, what nonsense.

[Javaman]

62. Oh yay :( ...it will certainly transform our atmosphere. nt

[WhoWoodaKnew]

64. Problem is, Australia is gonna do what they want.

I don't think they're gonna listen to us. If it helps their country then their politicians and companies will probably go for it.